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OTTAWA — After five hours of voting, Saskatchewan Conservative MP Andrew Scheer has become the youngest person ever elected to the post of Speaker of the House of Commons.

Scheer, 32, and NDP MP Denise Savoie, 67, were left to battle it out on the sixth ballot after Conservative MPs Lee Richardson, Merv Tweed, Barry Devolin and Ed Holder were eliminated one by one and Dean Allison and Bruce Stanton were kicked off the first ballot together as MPs voted by secret ballot on Thursday.

Scheer had the support of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's inner circle and the Tory majority caucus voted en mass for him. Some MPs even congratulated him before the final votes were counted.

Scheer told his colleagues he was touched by their vote of confidence and pledged to "do my best to live up to the trust you've placed in me."

"I'm just overwhelmed and humbled," Scheer told Postmedia News immediately after the results. "It's a great honour."

He said he would work to raise the tone of debates, especially since all the candidates had spoken on that as well as the party leaders who rose to congratulate him.

The young MP was recommended by the Conservatives to become assistant deputy Speaker in 2006 and became former Speaker Peter Milliken's deputy after the 2008 election. Milliken was very much a mentor, Scheer said.

After Harper and Opposition Leader Jack Layton performed the traditional dragging and pushing of the new Speaker towards his new chair, Scheer said that he believes one thing unites all MPs.

"We all want Canada to be a better place, and we all have different ideas of how to do it but our motives are the same," he told Postmedia News. "I think if members remembered that during debates, things could go a lot more smoothly."

Scheer's parents watched the voting from the House of Commons' gallery and beamed with pride.

His mother Mary said she has no doubt her son will have little difficulty reigning in his older colleagues if they misbehave.

"He is very strong-willed," she said.

"He will be able to keep the peace and keep order . . . The job is more important to him than putting up with nonsense or disrespect."

Scheer's wife Jill, who watched the voting with the couple's three-month old son Henry, said the family would move from Regina to the Speaker's estate, a historic farmhouse in the Gatineau Hills, so they could spend more time together while Scheer attends to the Speaker's tasks of presiding over question period, managing the House of Commons and entertaining dignitaries.

"I'm just very excited for him. He worked really hard and really, really wanted it, so I'm really glad that he was chosen," Jill said.

Scheer was good at keeping the peace between their four children, she said, but wouldn't elaborate on what that could mean for his abilities to keep order in the chamber.

"I don't want to compare his colleagues to children," she said, a nervous smile on her face.

Scheer ran for the first time in Regina-Qu'Appelle in 2004, beating NDP incumbent Lorne Nystrom. Elected at the tender age of 25, Scheer admits he was "a bit of a partisan guy" and heckler when he arrived in the House of Commons.

But he soon found himself captivated by the procedural gurus of the Liberal party, who — despite having a tenuous minority government — seemed to be quite successful at getting what they wanted through the House.

"That's when I started developing an interest," he told Postmedia News during a lengthy interview. "I saw the value of knowing the rules well enough that you could help play a role."

"Policy is very important, you know, policy has an impact on people's lives and its what parties and politicians run on . . . But when you are in the House and you are getting that legislation through procedure is very important."

Scheer was born and raised in Ottawa.

He attended Immaculata High School and went to the University of Ottawa before working on Parliament Hill as a political aide.

Conservative MP Scheer takes over Speaker's chair in House of Commons

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